


when the fairytale ends

by aspalas



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, spoilers for discs 1-3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspalas/pseuds/aspalas
Summary: She could live as either a princess or a witch. The choice had already been made for her.
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly/Squall Leonhart
Kudos: 8





	when the fairytale ends

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate retelling of bits of Rinoa's arc since I am unsatisfied with certain events (read: plot events). Initially I wanted to just write a drabble about her ring but it changed a little.

On Rinoa’s fifteenth birthday, a package for her arrived at her boarding school. Delivered in a plain brown package, only her name – Rinoa Caraway – and boarding house address was written on it. Rinoa turned the package over in her hands, wrinkling her nose at the name. From the handwriting she could tell the package was from her father, and she had told him many times before that Caraway was _not_ her last name. She ripped the offending paper away, wishing he would respect her for once. She was Rinoa Heartilly and the Caraway name began and ended with him, no matter how much he tried to make it so. Perhaps he tried to remind her of her lineage. Rinoa wanted no part of it.

Inside was a small velvet box and a heavy envelope, which also had Rinoa’s name inscribed on it. However, Rinoa knew that this wasn’t her father’s blocky but neat print that was on the package – someone who employed sweeping strokes of an ink quill on an elegant mahogany writing desk had surely penned this. The inkpot the writer had occasionally dipped their quill in to create meticulously crafted letters used has certainly dried up by now. It was most likely written in a room that hadn’t been used since her mother died, tucked away in the Caraway mansion to gather dust. She had seen that room, the desk, and the ink and quill over ten years ago.

She knew instantly this letter was from her mother, Julia.

 _My dearest,_ she had written on thick parchment, her cursive letters fluid and seamless, _by the time you will read this, it will be ten years since we’ve seen each other last. I told Daddy to give this to you when you turn fifteen. It is my wedding ring, the very same one your father has on his finger, but now it is yours. Rings represent eternity; they begin and end in a closed loop, never ending. May this ring represent my eternal love for you, my daughter, who will one day grow into a beautiful young lady. I am beyond death now, and will always be with you._

She signed the letter “Mommy” but Rinoa could barely read it by that point, tears blurring her vision. The ring that lay unperturbed in the velvet box was a plain silver band, quite different from the bejeweled rings that rested on the fingers of her professors and secretly engaged peers at her school. Funny enough, she couldn’t remember the last time her father wore his wedding ring. She decided to wear it as a necklace, scrabbling around her room for any kind of chain to hang it on. As she secured it to her neck, a part of her swore it would be in memory of her mother– but secretly, vindictively, she wanted to see the expression on her father’s face the next time he saw her wearing Julia’s ring. _I won’t let you forget her,_ is what she wanted to say. _I’ll carry on her name._

* * *

The ring changed Rinoa’s life, for better or worse.

For a school project, Rinoa had been assigned to look up “real world archives” or primary sources of human events from a certain time period in Galbadian history, as well as other cities under its rule. This included clippings of birth and death records, wedding announcements, and other events pertaining to the records of humanity. She actually liked research projects so she dove straight into the library for research. But after hours upon hours of poring over newspapers from thirty years ago the black and white print began to bleed into each other. It was only when her eye caught the name “Heartilly” under the tiny “Birth Announcements” column that her heart stopped.

_We are pleased to announce that ---- and --- Heartilly have successfully given birth to a healthy baby girl, Julia, on the -- day, --- month, in the year ---- at 1:40am in the city of Timber…_

Rinoa stared, her eyes glossing over the parents’ name and fixating on the baby’s name printed on the page. The date perfectly matched her mother’s birthday. She hadn’t known she was born in Timber, which had been occupied by the Galbadians in what seemed a lifetime. Her father had never told her. A flame of anger coiled in her stomach. She knew her father, Commander Caraway, regularly did business and patrols in Timber… she heard the stories of what happened there. How they roughed up the people and made citizens afraid to leave their houses. It made her sick to her stomach.

It was no coincidence that this prompted Rinoa, at age eighteen, to drop out of her school and begin plotting the independence of Timber with other like-minded associates that actually appreciated her petitions, flyers, and loud megaphone announcements the snooty girls at her boarding school did not. She moved away to Timber secretly, sending a short letter to her father of what she planned to do, denouncing his actions. After eight months of living in Timber and concocting a plan with the Forest Owls resistance group, Rinoa took up her pen and wrote to her father’s friend, Cid, for use of his special ops. Within days Cid readily agreed, sending over the paperwork Rinoa only had the capacity to read until page three until she gave up and signed off on whatever Cid wanted her to sign. She signed her deposit and waited patiently for days, twisting her mother’s ring in her fingers anxiously.

She knew she wasn’t readily accepted within the group. She knew what they called her behind her back – “princess”, “spoiled”, “just a kid” – and was looked down by some for being Caraway’s daughter. She didn’t hide anything from them. Rinoa wanted to argue that she could pull some strings with her name, even if she loathed it. But she wanted to help, prove herself useful for the cause. She thought about her mother’s family. It was all for the greater good.

What she got wasn’t quite what she expected: soldiers that looked like kids she went to school with. But if Cid said they were the best of the best, she couldn’t disagree. Not that it had any bearing on the success of the Forest Owls’ present mission but they _were_ easy on the eyes, especially the squad leader, though he perpetually had a stare that Watts swore was colder than Shiva’s Diamond Dust spell.

Rinoa didn’t mind. She didn’t know what detailed being a SeeD but they seemed capable enough, plus, the liberation of Timber was more important than worrying about the soldiers themselves. Though she couldn’t help but look at them at times and feel a dissonance between their faces and their actions. The life of resistance groups weren’t rosy, sure, but being a trained solider didn’t seem glamorous, either. She knew her father was a young military man at one point too… she wondered if she was just looking at a new generation of Caraways.

“What?” Squall, the leader, asked her as they disembarked the train car with the others. She guessed she stared at him too long and he didn’t like it. She was exhausted from the mission but tried not to let it show. She wondered if he thought she was a spoiled princess, too.

“Nothing,” Rinoa said. “I was just thinking that it’s rough being a solider.”

“It’s not, really,” Squall said, though Rinoa couldn’t tell if he was saying it because he was one or because he really believed it.

* * *

Quite a bit of time had passed since that first mission, and Rinoa found herself tagging along with SeeD (or technically, they tagged along with her – it was all in the contract). It was all exciting, new, and interesting, even if it was often dangerous. Rinoa was glad she left her school. Studying was not in the cards for her. And yet… when she accompanied Squall and Zell back to Balamb Garden to assist in saving the institution, she was awed at how beautiful the school was. It was more like a facility than a school to her, though.

Rinoa seized upon the free time they had and insisted to be shown around. Squall couldn’t make up an excuse to get out of it so both of them spent the afternoon strolling around the school’s wide, sprawling hallways. Rinoa’s old school was more traditional and, as a result, constantly oohed and aahed at the high tech design. Squall opted to watch her silently until she asked him a question, and even sometimes he declined to say anything. After about an hour and a half, Rinoa sensed Squall was tired of playing tour guide and announced she was tired. They decided to sit in the garden area and eat, Squall opting to buying her lunch with his meal card. While Rinoa ate her sandwich Squall seemed to have mentally transported himself into what Rinoa secretly referred to as the Land of Overthinking.

“Hey,” Rinoa said, attempting to bring him back to reality. “I like your ring.”

She had first noticed it on their tour, shining in the florescent light of the training area of the Garden as he pointed with his right hand. Unlike her mother’s ring, it had a symbol embossed on it she did not recognize.

“What?” Squall said. Rinoa guessed he had been wrapped up in his thoughts once again.

“I _said_ , I like your ring,” Rinoa repeated, louder this time.

Squall looked down at the silver band. It was snugly fitted to his right ring finger, and thanks to his black gloves it seemed impossible to get on or off. “Thanks.”

“Where’d you get it?” Rinoa asked.

Squall stared at her. “Um.”

Rinoa’s eyes widened. “Maybe… oh! You got it from your girlfriend!”

Squall’s eyebrows knotted together, making That Face, which meant a deep frown and disapproving look. Rinoa fought an urge to giggle. “No.”

“Did you get it from your family?”

“No…” Squall looked away. “I don’t remember.”

“Oh,” Rinoa said, wondering if she went too far. “Well, it’s a beautiful ring,” she amended. She leaned closer to Squall’s hand for a better look. “Looks like there’s a, uh, monster on it?”

“It’s not a monster,” Squall said tersely. “It’s a lion.”

“Lion, huh…” Rinoa let this bit of information simmer, and craned her head up to look at the bright blue sky. “I’ve read books about lions. They’re so cute. Their manes look so fluffy. I’d really like to pet one.”

She took Squall’s silence as a sign of his usual to-cool-to-talk moods so she continued to ramble. “I’m kinda surprised you’re wearing a ring. I don’t see many guys wearing them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. My mom said… well, actually, she didn’t _say_ anything to me, she wrote it in a letter, rings are supposed to represent eternity because they never end. Begin and end in a loop, you know? She said, ‘I’m giving this to you because I’ll always love you.’ I wish I could see her again.”

Rinoa let her words hang in the air as she finished her sandwich. Maybe she over shared a little too much. Squall barely discussed anything outside of missions. She had been trying lately to get Squall to talk more, and so far, she thought it had been working – but maybe the wall she had been trying to deconstruct was more ironclad with all the silly stuff she had been blurting.

“Actually,” Squall said at last, “lions represent strength and pride, and military power. They’re not just big cats. They’re not to be taken lightly on and off the battlefield.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “My ring… Griever, that’s his name. It helps me, I guess.” He glanced at the ring hanging on Rinoa’s neck. “If your ring helps you remember your mother, mine gives me strength to fight. To make hard decisions that I might not agree with.”

“That’s amazing,” Rinoa said, impressed. “I mean, for both things. Your ring is special, too.” For some reason she felt giddy; elated that he had both acknowledged Rinoa and shared bits and pieces of himself with her simultaneously. “You’ve done your research on lions, huh?”

Squall gave a curt nod. “I’ve read a lot of books on the subject…” and then he trailed off. Embarrassed, maybe. Realizing he may have said too much too fast.

“But still, they’re big _cats_ , aren’t they?” Rinoa prodded. “I bet if you gave a lion some yarn they’d want to play with it!”

Squall shrugged. “Maybe so.” He paused. Rinoa guessed he was deliberating to continue or cut it there. “I read in a book they like catnip. And they like hiding in high places,” he managed.

“Really?” Rinoa asked. “So do they play with cat scratching posts, too?”

“Well…”

As Squall rambled on, Rinoa felt like she won…something. She couldn’t stop smiling.

* * *

The next few days were a blur. Rinoa had never seen so much fighting up close. Bodies littered on the ground carelessly as the group stepped over them, around them, towards the Witch. Rinoa watched Squall’s face. It was twisted into what she could only describe as predatory: an intense, headstrong gaze with narrowed but careful eyes. Those eyes told a whole story, signaling to his prey that he would never give up, never back down, even if he had to go down with them.

They saw Her: the Witch and her Knight, declaring SeeD’s demise. Rinoa remembers clashing with Seifer, looking into the eyes of someone she hardly recognizes now, and after he faltered, she locked eyes with the Witch, and suddenly, she couldn’t move—

Rinoa fell asleep. Or something like it. Her whole world became black; she couldn’t even call out to anyone. _At a time like this?_ She thought she could hear Quistis scolding her, or maybe that was an auditory hallucination. Perhaps the Witch consumed them in the blink of an eye and this is her version of purgatory. Before she could even think about it deeply, her eyes fluttered open, the world was nothing but a blinding light, and she was awake.

It took a second to adjust to the light and realized Rinoa wasn’t lying down, and instead was standing next to a body in a hospital bed, looking at it. _Her_ body. Or something that _looked_ like her body. The skin on the body seemed paler than usual, almost ghostly white, but sure enough, it was certainly her face, hair, everything.. She looked around. An IV was strapped to her arm and an oxygen mask and related machine was covering her face. She suddenly realized that Squall was sitting next to her body, head bowed in a vigil. He seemed afraid to touch her.

Was she dying?

If she was, she was having an extraordinary sensation: something akin to electricity was thrumming under her skin. It felt like the magic she drew from monsters, but she couldn’t feel the GFs she had equipped before the fight junctioned to her brain. They were gone, but the magic remained, making her skin itch and pressure build up behind her eyeballs and her brain like a extraordinary headache. It felt more powerful, more dangerous—explosive, even. Rinoa felt like a balloon that was being filled with too much air: eventually, she would explode.

“Rinoa…”

Squall’s voice jolted her thoughts, tearing her away from the sensations creeping inside her. His voice echoed throughout the infirmary. She didn’t even know where they were, if they were still in Galbadia or Balamb or even a different dimension. “I wish you’d wake up,” he muttered. His eyes were glassy and red. Rinoa wondered if he had been crying. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but her body wouldn’t react. The magic that was flooding her senses rooted her to the other side of her bed, staring directly into Squall’s mournful face. She tried moving her fingers, but she was frozen. Only her eyeballs moved, roving from her physical body to Squall.

“Rinoa, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he continued. He gripped the side of her bed in frustration. “But we’re going to save you. Esthar has the means. So don’t go anywhere… don’t go where I can’t follow you.”

Rinoa wanted to cry. Frustrated tears began to swell at the corner of her eyes. She wanted to yell out in the obnoxious tone that she knew got people's attention, _Squall, look! I’m right here!_ But whatever entity had brought her out of her body had imposed restrictions: she couldn’t touch anything. She couldn’t speak nor move. She could only exist as a spectator while her body underwent changes she couldn’t yet explain, and felt every single poke and prod it was doing to her insides.

Squall stared at her body as his voice trailed off, and then his hands. Then, slowly, he began to remove his skintight gloves from his hands. Rinoa watched, transfixed; she had never seen his hands bare – and as the faded scars shone in the fluorescent light, she understood why. He shimmied off the silver ring from the glove and placed it on the bedside table. He extended his naked hands toward Rinoa’s throat and, as Rinoa watched silently, began to feel around the cold chain until he found the clasp. Unhooking it, he gently removed the necklace from her neck. 

Rinoa was suddenly afraid. She trusted Squall, but no one but her had ever touched that necklace. She watched her mother’s ring sit in his hand, looking very small. She fixed her eyes on Squall’s face. The lion eyes she had seen in Galbadia Garden were gone. Only a quiet and deep sadness remained, etched into the lines on his mouth and the creases on his eyes.

“There,” he breathed.

Rinoa gasped. She hadn’t paid attention to what he had been doing, and as he leaned over to refix the clasp on her necklace, a second ring had joined hers—Squall’s Griever now sat on her clavicle.

“Rinoa,” he said to her body. “I want to give this to you. I don’t need it like you do— you need the strength of a lion more than I do right now. You said your mother’s ring meant her love for you is eternal.” He paused. Rinoa almost felt like crying watching his eyebrows pinch together; not because he was irritated, but with a somber, desolate edge. “I never really thought about what Griever meant to me until I had to tell you; until you asked me. Maybe some of his strength will bring you back..”

Rinoa wanted to throw her arms around him, whisper and yell a hundred thank yous and I miss yous and sorrys all at once. Thank you, I miss you, sorry, I want to see you. It was unfair he couldn’t see or hear her, but she could see him. _I’ll come back soon. I promise._ She swore on her mother’s ring she would return to say thank you properly.

“Ellone will save you,” Squall told her. “Don’t worry… I have a plan. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 _Will he, though,_ an unfamiliar voice whispered in Rinoa’s ear. _Will the sleeping princess be awoken with the prince’s kiss?_

Rinoa stiffened. This voice sounded somehow familiar to the Witch they had fought. She locked her eyes on Squall’s bowed head as he refitted his gloves.

 _My poor Rinoa,_ it continued, sickeningly sweet. _You’ve wanted to be a princess all your life, hm? Once upon a time, you lost your mother and your father in different ways. You ran away from home with your beloved companion and joined a gallant prince and his infantry. And now, you can become his princess. You have his ring, don’t you? Perhaps I could be your fairy godmother, blessing you both with love, light, and a child. Live happily ever after. The end._

“That's not true,” Rinoa said loudly. She tried to drown out that voice that made her skin tingle and the magic inside her boil. “You’re patronizing me. Get out of my head. Princesses don’t exist!”

The voice laughed, and the magic power that had been quietly pulsing through her for a while now suddenly increased tenfold, caused Rinoa to double over in pain. _My dear, you’re quite right. Kings and queens and princesses are bygone concepts these days. That is why if you cannot be a princess, you are fated to live as a witch._

Rinoa keeled over, her eyesight growing hazy. “Squall,” she breathed, and closed her eyes. Again, she knew she had sunk back into the darkness.

Was she doomed to be a Witch? Were those the nature of the powers that were coursing through her, threatening to burst? She knew the fate of Witches in this land, if they were discovered: death by entombment or execution. Either hide away from the world or die.

Rinoa couldn’t even see her hand in front of her, but she imagined holding her mother’s ring and Griever in her fist. She imagined the sensation of the cold steel pressing into her hand, waking her up. _Mommy, Squall… I’ll stay awake until I can see you both again… I won’t go anywhere either of you can’t reach._

Darkness enveloped her. Rinoa sat on the floor, on nothing, and stared into the void. The woman’s voice whispered in her ear, but she refused to listen. “Squall,” she whispered. “Everyone. I’ll be back soon.”

She believed if she said it enough times it would come true. It was no longer a prayer to the gods, or a plea to a benevolent being that would grant her wishes, but as a spell of her own invention— Rinoa was a Witch now, after all.


End file.
